Tricking Your Customers Without Cheating Them

1. Tricking Your Customers Without Cheating Them The Case of an Online Brokerage Firm, InterStock Presentation by: Debra Burleson

2. InterStock • Deceiving, misrepresenting, or being clever? • Representing an inversion of “outsourcing” – presenting itself as existing in other countries but geographically based in one location • Determining ethical/unethical actions through the cultural lens

3. Dilemma • As in Case #3 (Dossier Solutions), we see the company only through the perspective of one person – Karlsen • Writers appear unbiased and yet conclude with “they have disguised their physical location to appear local in a variety of European countries” • Is there an ethical dilemma in this case?

4. Ethical Fairness We recognize that while different communities may make different types of decisions, they are likely to make similar judgments about fairness.

5. Transparency • Writers question InterStock’s transparency • What about call centers? Dell for example. • While users might prefer to call and talk with someone in the U.S., do they find it unethical to talk with someone in the Philippines?

6. Impression ManagementInterStock • Mail is forwarded to Oslo • Mail to customers uses the destination’s country’s stamp • Calls are forwarded and representatives from those countries answer the phone.

7. “Electronic Window Dressing” Goffman’s Impression Management divides communication into two parts: • a part that is easy to manipulate – verbal communication (or, in our case, written) • a part that is more unconscious and difficult to control, non-verbal

8. One perspective of outsourcing customer service From an article, “The ethics of outsourcing customer service” by Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D. McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceKnight-Ridder/Tribune News Service One person’s statement: The problem with outsourcing customer service is that this practice creates nothing but negative word of mouth. Time is precious, and what customer wants to spend an inordinate amount of time in an often-vain attempt to communicate with a company employee who is halfway around the world and cannot speak English effectively? It is easy to measure the savings a business gets by farming out customer service jobs to countries whose median income is an eighth of what it is in the United States.

9. Weinstein suggests this solution: “Smart businesses recognize that the surest way to hold on to their current customers and create new ones is to place customer satisfaction front and center… This means that customer service representatives must be able to communicate clearly. This also means that these employees should be fluent not only in the primary language of the customer base but in their culture, customs, and idiosyncrasies as well. The root of "customer" is "custom," and customs are largely a mystery to those who live and work outside of the culture.”

10. InterStock • Based on the information presented as to the extent the firm has created ways to appear to have a physical presence, would this be an argument in support of the fact that InterStock realizes these measures are unethical? • If so, does the fact that InterStock is successful have anything to do with whether or not they are ethical?